Quick Thoughts: Dev D

Absolutely loved Dev-D. The backgroud score was just too good. The characters were amazing… what I loved about the movie was there was no attempt to create pity for the main 3 characters. It was not the usual stuff of extremely goody-goody people, who want no harm for anyone falling pray to life’s devilsih pranks…Dev and Paro were seemingly normal people, who decided to make some wrong decisions out of ego, spite, jealousy, whatever. And nowhere, did the director actually try to drill it into our heads that Dev took to drinking and drugs because of his immense love for Paro. I could almost feel Dev’s addiction went beyond forgetting his pain, and that he was enjoying the drugs!

The loose end in the movie, about Paro’s life with Bhuvan has been tantalizingly left unexplored. Chanda’s back story could have created some sympathy, but she herself chose not to take that sympathy.

The story of Devdas itself, does not excite me much. Only a loser would want to waste his life because he did not get what he wanted. I do not appreciate sympathising with such a character. Obviously, I have not read the book nor seen the earlier adaptations, so I may not know of any hidden merits in the story which has made it a big hit. ( I tried SRK’s devdas, but between SRK’s irritating over-acting and Kiron Kher and the other ensemble’s dialogues with a few bengali words irritatingly mixed in, I gave up). I liked the Dev D approach to the movie because it did not have the semi-philosphical true love bullshit in it. Infact, Dev himself acknowledges in the end that it might just have been lust.

Finally, the movie had oodles of style. Did I mention the awesome soundtrack. The director dedicates it to Danny Boyle, and I have wanted to watch ‘train-spotting”, his take on drugs that has influenced Anurag Kashyap

Yeah, Devdas isn’t worth sympathizing at all. I mean, who else but a loser, wouldn’t want to get on with life. It is just that he wants people to sympathise with him on his heart being broken. He didn’t have the guts to do anything. Neither pick Paro as his wife against his family’s wishes, nor could he get over her being married to someone else.

I’ve to watch DevD, but seems to be much better and realistic than Devdas. By realistic I do mean people should suspect their 1st love and then go to prostitutes, but then, every character seems to be pragmatic about their life.

Cannot agree more with you on other Devdas esly the new one were SRK and ASH were equally irritating. I loved Dev D too , coming out of the theater after watching it, I felt so liberated I decided to walk to m place past 12 in the nite . I so loved the last scene of the movie especially. Me watched trainspotting too sometime back. hard to believe its the same guy who directed SDM.I suppose all his movies are about the protagonist winning loads of money in the end. I am not spoiling it for you if u r planning to watch it 😉

I watched the movie again within 24 hours. I liked it even better the second time around. I am happy that he did not end the way the regular Devdas ends with all that melodrame. The new Dev was a loser for a long time in the movie, but at-least realized that he was being pathetic. I too loved the last scene, and the one in which Paro comes and cleans his room. She said some really intelligent dialogs in that scene. I am planning to watch trainspotting, but i dont think the ending is going to spoil the movie for me. I have heard it is all about the style!

The story of Devdas is a ready-made platform for endless psycho-analysis and study of contemporary social framework. The original tale relied on the notions of platonic love whereas Dev D is about physical love. It relies on on-face shock value! Devdas is a coward who is defeated by the social prejudices and carries the guilt throughout his life. He drinks in order to forget his cowardice. Dev D and all the other characters of Kashyap’s tale aren’t influenced by the social norms. Both stories thereby reflecting their specific era.

The character sketching is unique. Dev is played to near perfection by Abhay Deol, whose performance is quiet and confident. Paro (Mahie Gill) is no more the sacrificial damsel who lives physically and mentally with different men. Kashyap also maintains the audience’s distance from the characters using the brilliance in script and smooth editing. He never allows us to sympathize with the characters, thereby shifting the focus from one to the other- a rare work of imagery, indeed!

I strongly feel Kashyap could have gone with a better actress for Chanda (Kalki Koechlin). Chanda’s part was not exploited well. The psychological impact of the whole mms incident on her which leads to the suicide of her father never showed up. It was a perfect opportunity to tell the world about the feelings of a girl, and all the hardships she goes through because of one mms!